My Heart's Core
by bj
Summary: There's rosemary for you, that's for remembrance! Bright/Colin. Continuation of "Whilst This Machine."


it's: my heart's core  
by: bj  
in sum: there's rosemary for you, that's for remembrance!  
label: bright. bright/colin. colin/amy. bright/gemma. implied: ephram/amy, ephram/colin.  
rating: pg. one word + a suggestive scene.  
sissies: "til death do us part," "vegetative state," "colin the second, " "snow job."  
legalities: don't own, don't sue.  
i say: continuation of "whilst this machine." five more months of angst. title/summary from "hamlet."  
muse: "the scientist" and "amsterdam" by coldplay.  
you say: all comments appreciated, answered, and archived. allcanadiangirl@lycos.com.

  
**my heart's core**

November. There is a phone call when he wakes up.

There is her smile. There is Bright's, in the mirror.

There is the discovery that he remembers nothing, and then her tears. She soaks the front of Bright's shirt, he has to push her away before he cries, before the salt eats through his skin.

He takes his rye out to the logging roads, he finds the clearing. He sits against a tree, he drinks. He could never say no to Colin. It was one of those things where he swallowed his own inadequacy and let Colin live for him. The keys dangling were like medals of loyalty, trust, approval, and.

He throws the bottle, he can't think "love," so he screams instead.

The rest is silence.

  
  
December. The house is dark and cold. Bright won't go to the hospital, he refuses, he has excuses like school and lingering illness. He stays home from his exams and he spends the break entirely numb, no pain, wanting nothing. Everything he could have asked for has been made useless: no snow, Colin's return, the dissolution of Amy and Ephram.

He spends the break on the couch, watching cartoons, watching her brittle static movements, remembering the way she used to dance. Her voice stretched thin over her chest, the way she used to laugh.

He admires and despairs her ability to hope, the way she can be so alone and so-the only word for it is "stubborn." He thinks she never needed protecting, she never needed him at all. He thinks she needs only Colin and the crown he provides.

  
  
January. Bright doesn't want to start over. He doesn't want a clean slate, he doesn't want a clean conscience. He wants Colin to know him, because he thinks he might not exist at all if Colin doesn't know him.

He'd rather be the one with amnesia. He thinks Colin was always stronger, strong enough to live with the memory, strong enough to move on.

He sneaks out of the house at night, he walks for hours, he stands outside Colin's house and sees his light on. He thinks of the time Colin hung a sheet rope out the window and Bright nearly dislocated his shoulder climbing up. Colin called him a pussy. That was the first time Colin kissed him.

He thinks it didn't happen at all. He thinks he's constructing memories, trying to fill in the half of his life that belongs to Colin.

He closes his eyes and sees the word "please" in the darkness.

  
  
February. Bright hides from Colin and Ephram because that smile used to be his, it used to break for him alone. He hides from Amy's last stand on the mountain, he hides from his father.

He hides in Gemma and doesn't think about how her pliancy feels wrong in his hands. He doesn't think about how cold her skin is, or how sour her lip gloss tastes, or how her long nails feel like needles against him. He doesn't think about Colin pressing him back, making it happen, he doesn't think about big and warm he seemed, how smooth and clean he tasted.

When he pulls his father from the lift, he wants to thank him, even though he knows the reprieve is only temporary.

  
  
March. Spring. He dreams again of the accident, the fall is short, painful. He hears voices, he hears laughter, he hears people living. He can't open his eyes, he can't speak, he can't join them, he's taken Colin's place.

He wakes facedown on his bed, mouth full of pillow. He stands, joints aching, his body feverish. He goes to the window and opens the curtain, wondering if there's still snow on the mountains. There is, and he curses it. He looks down at the yard, at his father's car and Amy's bike chained to the fence.

Bright watches the wind, the way it moves the waxy green shoots of his mother's daffodils and tulips.

  
End. 


End file.
